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paraseleneg1rl · 24 days ago

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Pet - Chapter 1

A Coriolanus Snow x reader fanfiction.

Summary: In a moment of weakness, Coriolanus finally gives in to temptation and decides to save you from Dr. Gaul's laboratory.

Chapter Summary: Your life takes a strange and unexpected new turn.

Warnings: Coriolanus Snow being Coriolanus Snow, Obsession, Obsessive behavior, possessive behavior, misogyny, captivity.

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

A/N: This was not proofread so please excuse any mistakes lol and bare with my messing writing. Also, it's a bit of a slow burn, and I hope the story doesn't bore you. Let me know what you think, I appreciate all kinds of feedback!

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CHAPTER 1

"What an interesting turn of events. You've grown fond of your little pet."

Dr. Gaul appears to be all smiles after her apprentice's meager attempts at bargaining. A chuckle claws its way out, resonating from deep within the gut and all her vileness. At the grating sound of her mockery Coriolanus flushes red and clenches his jaw.

The silence in the laboratory begins to grow eery and suffocating. Now that the others have clocked out, he and Dr. Gaul are all that remain. Coriolanus had waited nervously for office hours to reach its end before approaching her with his frantic idea, hoping such measure would promise discretion.

"I assure you fondness has nothing to do with my request," murmurs Coriolanus, with half a mind to chuck the papers in his hands smack against her hideous, wrinkled face. It is with a great and most tiresome restraint that he manages to refrain at all. "And you know I don't usually do this but my circumstances leave me no choice."

"I may be an old woman, little boy. But don't mistake me for a fool."

How many times must he justify himself, he wonders, before she loses all enjoyment of witnessing him in this stiff display of frizzled nerves. It is despicable how easily she makes his skin crawl, how exposed and patronized he feels beneath her smug scrutiny.

"As I've said, Dr. Gaul, I'm only looking for a caretaker to look after my grandmother. From what i've read in her folder the girl has the right experience for this role."

It was the only excuse he could conjure at discovering the details of your past life, how you were a volunteer at an old folks home in 9 on your days off from the bakery.

"Why, I'll take your word for it then," another loud bark of a laugh from Dr. Gaul. A sly, sharp-edged kind that rouses suspicion on the validity of her statement. At this point Coriolanus desires nothing but to crawl back home, never to encounter her wretched grin again. "After all, I doubt you have the means to afford a Capitol nurse."

A sharp jab. The corners of his lips twitch with something of disdain as he begins to shrink into himself. It is no secret that the Plinths provide a generous allowance every now and then. Beyond those monthly stipends, however, there was little else in the way of sustenance.

His internship at the Citadel pays dust and Tigris continues making a pitiful wage slaving away for that miser Fabricia. With renovations well under way and bills stacked high, what little they have is already stretched thin.

"Right. So you are perfectly aware that I am asking for a reasonable favor." Coriolanus bites with a tightness in his jaw.

"And you are perfectly aware that I don't do favors, Mr. Snow."

"Deduct whatever she's worth from my allowance," says Coriolanus, his words accompanied by a quivering sigh he failed to confine. The gradual unravelling of composure. "Or I can work longer hours, whichever you wish. Surely we can reach an agreement one way or another."

Dr. Gaul responds with an amused look, one brow arched at the pathetic display in front of her, no doubt thoroughly enjoying the destruction of his facade. A fine porcelain now fractured and cracked. Why is it, Coriolanus muses, that she always happens to witness him in such disgraceful circumstances?

"Deduct your allowance," she mocked with an ugly chortle that felt derogatory to both the ears and the soul. "Do you have any idea, Mr. Snow, just how much my good friends are willing to pay out of their pockets for a new district mistress to warm their bed?"

"I..." Something akin to a ball sized lump lodges itself in his throat. He swallows it down with shame and an inaudible stammered reply. "Yes, well, I suppose—"

"Magnanimous amounts. Magnanimous. You could never outbid these men should you dare try."

Of course. What was he thinking anyway, coming up to Dr. Gaul with such naive fantasies? Was he out of his mind?

His throat expands and bile threatens to rise. A mighty weight burdens his head, pressing down on either sides with an agonizing pressure. For a miserable moment the room spins and turns.

"Lucky for you, young man," she continues, the delight in her guttural voice slathered thick over that fateful turn of phrase. "I am in a particularly curious mood. My, how fascinating. It would be our own little experiment."

"Experiment?" He fumbles for the right words, or more accurately a grasp on her dreadful riddle. Qualm and something akin to glee battle for dominance within the empty pit of his gut. "I'm sorry, I don't think I understand your meaning, Dr. Gaul."

"Of course you don't," she chuckles menacingly. With a wicked smile she pushes herself off her chair and turns to the corner of the lab.

In his puzzlement he finds himself hesitating, until the mad woman shoots him a quick glance at last without as much as a pause from her marching. He rushes over to her, realizing his mentor was heading right to the quarantine zone where you quietly lay asleep.

With Coriolanus at her heels, Dr. Gaul trails on lazily, only stopping once she reaches the thick glass of your enclosure. In his perplexity Coriolanus eyes the mad woman, apprehension brewing and curdling inside him at the sound of her baleful snigger. She peers through the glass, to which he follows suit.

How peaceful you look in your quiet slumber, with long lashes resting gently under the curved petal of your eyes. He can't help the electrical spark that jolts him awake when he looks at you.

It's the kind of stupidity only Lucy Gray had ever fueled. He chews nervously on the inside of his mouth, the emotions he had long harboured now entangled with one another.

His conflict drives him quiet. A part of him is certain that whatever he is doing is an obvious and marked deviation from his plans, so decidedly opposed to his good sense that Coriolanus is most certain he will blight himself for it later.

But another part, a small, self indulgent piece of him, continues to insist that this is the one and only way. That he can't and musn't surrender your fate to the hands of another man.

How should he sleep in the future with the memory of your gentle face branded onto the darkness behind his eyelids, all glass eyed and rosy cheeks, knowing fully well that you will then be at the hands of another. Your goodness forever soiled by their filth.

No, he won't have it. What would they know about handling a girl like you? Nothing. They would break you. Your kindness would crumble into obscurity under the weight of their evil. He isn't good himself, but he's known goodness in his life. And he won't let you be ruined the same way his Tigris had been.

"It is most peculiar to me how predictable men can be."

Ugh, that awful noise. Coriolanus snaps out of his daze, quick to find Dr. Gaul's amused stare.

He sighs. "If you aren't willing—"

"I'm not blind, Mr Snow. I could tell she had caught your eye from the very first day our peackeepers dumped her here with those other vermins."

"It's not like that." He retaliates with desperate haste, eyes fluttering to the stone floor, then back up to the glass doors — anything but the awful woman beside him, who's now evidently persistent on being a mindreader. "Really, I wish you wouldn't twist this into something it isn't, Dr. Gaul."

"Look at you," she cackles. "There is nothing to be ashamed of. It's only normal. Everybody knows people tend to grow somewhat...attached to their pets."

"She..." He clears his throat, hoping with all might that the warmth that had crept up his cheeks wouldn't manifest into bright color over the skin. And that term again...Pet. He isn't quite sure what to make of it. Curiously enough it doesn't elicit much of an awful feeling. No, not at all. "She will be working for me. For my grandma'am. That's all there is to it."

"I've seen you, Coriolanus Snow. You think you are above it all, above your own weaknesses. That nothing and no one can come in your way. Well, boy, you could fool your friends, and even your foe, but certainly not me. I for one have always known that you've never forgotten that poor songbird of yours. And your boyish fondness for helpless little damsels...That hasn't seem to have left your system either."

"If you're trying to intimidate me, Dr. Gaul, I have to tell you it's not working," his jaw clenches tight. They are still in the Citadel, for goodness sake. She has no business mentioning Lucy Gray, not after all that trouble they'd gone to together to wipe out every proof of her trivial existence. He swallows down his conflict and glances back to the glass, raging blue eyes now subdued as they land on you. Perhaps it was all a bad idea. At least he tried. "She's all yours. I should get going anyhow."

"Now, just a moment. Wipe that frown off your face," Dr. Gaul ejaculates in terrifying glee, her exclamation followed by a wretched burst of laughter, apparently entertained by his discomfort. "Don't you see, child? You are failing to rise above your desire! This, Coriolanus, is humanity undressed. All that animalistic need...I can see it clawing at you when you leer at your pretty fawn. Men like you pine for what they shouldn't have — Don't mistake my silence all this time for blindness to your turmoil. You and I both know you could devour her if only you were given the chance. Well, Mr. Snow, let me tell you, your head is surely losing that battle against your biology. You're a man and she a powerless thing. That would appeal to most anyone if only they allowed themselves to admit it. Human nature always wins after all."

"I am above it." Coriolanus snaps. "Above anything you think I'm not. She is district. And it's...You must excuse me Dr. Gaul but whatever you are implying, it is incredibly despicable. These accusations are filthy, they have nothing to do with me, and everything to do with your twisted ideas."

"Lets see if you still feel the same way once she's caged up in that house of yours," says Dr. Gaul. "Nowhere to go. Chained to your mercy. You could do anything you wanted to that girl. Watch, then, how quickly your true nature overpowers all logic. All semblance of morality or humanity or social order you pretend to still have."

"This is absolute nonsense. I am not you, Dr. Gaul," Coriolanus sputters in anger. Or was it embarrassment? He could no longer tell. If it was any other situation Coriolanus would have punished himself for speaking against his mentor in such a way but this is turning to be much more different than her usual cheek. All this provocation was bringing his blood to a boil.

"Is it?" she retorts. "We are nothing but animals at the end of the day. Predator and prey. I know which one you are. You could trick yourself, and soothe that pitiful excuse of humanity you pretend you have left inside and drown in your self-indulgent delusions of being a savior. When I know for a fact, young man, that you have always been a starving wolf hunting for a little lamb. Nothing more, nothing less. Why is it, Mr. Snow, do you think those men are so desperately hungry for their district girls? You know as well as I do they like to consume and corrupt their prey. It makes them feel powerful, leaning into their natural instincts. And you are no different. The sooner that you accept that the easier for you it will be."

With every exhale his breaths come out ragged and harsh through his nostrils. How he despises the woman. What was she even rambling about, anyway?

Animal instincts and predator and prey and human nature. Nonsense, all of it. He's heard it before, and he could argue for it when it comes to the Games, but this? This has nothing to do with her awful ideas.

Sure he can admit he's a man with an attraction to a pretty girl but all that talk about corruption and consuming and prey is guff. Most of all it's stretching his patience thin.

And the gall to put him in the same league as those repulsive men...When in reality he is miles above them. Above them all, and their odious inclinations. What else were they besides idiots with a liking for foul district toys. Coriolanus swallows hard, his jaw tight. Dr. Gaul's been off her rocker a good while now, he reminds himself. This is her being true to her character and nothing else.

"What do you think made you pine for that little songbird of yours in the first place?" she continues, much to his vexation. "It made no sense in that mechanical head of yours, didn't it? Lucy Gray was a district chit. What good could she have brought you? Then of course you fooled yourself into believing it was... love. Ha! Delusions. I'll tell you what it was, Mr. Snow. It was precisely because she was district that you drove to such madness for her. Not love, whatever that silly word means. But she was beneath you, lesser than you in every way, powerless and impotent and helpess. Now that was the very source of all your affections. Oh, don't give me that look. It made you feel good, didn't it? She was in your palm, ready for you to crush. In the games, especially, Lucy Gray was at your mercy. Oh and how you loved it. To know in all confidence that she was yours, your songbird, your pet. Your possession...Well, until she flew away in the trees. But no matter. Now that you've found another pet you finally get to see your true colors again. How very predictable. Did I mention how predictable you men can be?"

Coriolanus grits his teeth at her mockery. He refuses to hear anymore of this. The nerve to speak of Lucy Gray! And to drive his name to the ground and cake it with mud and soot and filth like that...His nails dig painfully into the softness of both palms. Right as he turns to walk away, Dr. Gaul grabs him by the arm.

"We are no better than animals, Mr. Snow."

"If there's nothing else, i'm going home. I refuse to defend myself from such baseless accusations, and I won't beg you for a servant." He bites.

"Thankfully you won't need to!" she laughs with a bark. "The girl is all yours. We'll see, then, how long it takes for you to move past all those fine manners and all your faulty logic and at last accept that you are not in any way above your true nature. You'll thank me when you sink your claws in that poor little fawn of yours. And there's no reason to fret, in due time you'll forget the shame of it all. I for one, am most certainly looking forward to it. You can't let this bird go now, can you, Coriolanus?"

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You awake with something of a start, alarmed by the tugging sensation on your arm. The bright light flashing from above blinds you momentarily. Despite your foggy daze you manage to blink it away and find the person who had shaken you into consciousness, locking eyes with a familiar set of ocean blue. This is it, the thought comes to mind. This is finally it.

Those are the words chanted by the voice in back of your mind everytime you regain consciousness and wake from your restless dreams to him again. Him, the inscrutable boy with his white coat and white gloves and pearly white teeth. If he wasn't staring you down and jotting in his notes, he was stabbing a needle into your arm. And scarcely a word ever comes out of his mouth.

Snow. You've heard the other men and women in white beckon him by that name. That god-awful scientist lady with the crazy eyes and wild hair always did. That was Dr. Gaul, or so they called her.

With every liquid the two forced into your body you wondered if it would be the last. More often than not you were fairly convinced.

In the beginning it was petrifying to imagine that once you closed your eyes and drifted off into darkness you might never see the light again. It was easy to drown in that bone-chilling, violent sea of fear, as you sat all alone in confinement.

You remember trembling at just the sight of him, that boy of sharp edges and cold composure. After all, he was the reaper himself. Your life was in his hands.

But as time went on you couldn't help but pray that death would finally come to take you away. The wait was excruciating. The pain from all their sharp needles and colorful serums even more so.

Perhaps it is time that makes all things easier to navigate and the most painful truths more delicate pills to swallow, for as the days flew past, you began to slowly embrace the imminent end of your short life.

Out of every other choice it was the only merciful one. The idea of remaining in that glass coop and being that mad woman's lab rat for eternity seemed like torture. Just to imagine felt terrifying; it was despicable how these people proked and prodded your body as though you were nothing. Well, you suppose that was what you were to the Capitol anyway.

Death was the one light at the end of the tunnel. There was no escaping your fate.

Snow is looking down at you now, towering from your bedside with that bone chilling ice in his stare. Your dry lips parted mechanically to make way for a quivering breath.

It is difficult to ignore the perfect symmetry of his porcelain face, a clean canvas of sharp lines and high cheekbones, after all that time you spent in his company. Every feature that decorated his skin gave him a beauty so perfect, so void of any flaw, that it bordered on uncanny. You'd never seen a man quite as beautiful as him.

You take notice of his own thin lips, a curve of soft pink flesh unearthed from its usual tight line as they parted to speak, stirring inside you a boiling mess of anxiety and fear and curiosity alike. So seldom does he ever allow his voice out of its box that when he does it feels as heavenly as it does mortifying.

After all it is he who possesses the power. Should he command you to march the front steps of death's door nobody would stop him. Get up, you imagine him saying before taking you to another room. One where nobody thrown inside has ever come out of.

He purses his lips shut then separates them once more. The words seem to have dried on his tongue, clinging desperately to his silence, much too stubborn to leave. You're all too familiar with the feeling yourself. Barely a word has ever been spoken between the two of you. There was never a need for conversation.

"Get up." his words stumble out at last.

This is it.

The time has finally come.

Release. For so long you had spent much of your time imagining this particular moment, and now that it is here at last it feels both strange and unreal.

Would it be painful? Would a peacekeeper face you to the wall and plant a single bullet to the back of your head? You used to hope as much, it seemed the closest thingn to a merciful end, in comparison to the vast range of excruciating penalties they could very well subject you to.

And yet, at this very moment, as you slowly rise from the thin mattress of the bed, every limb on your body begins to tremble and grow weak. Just standing up feels laborious — had it not been for the firm grip on both your arms, clutched in place by the reaper himself, you would have fallen and melted onto the polished floor.

You pray your soul slips away as soon as the shot rings, that nothing more than a pinch will register when the metal burrows deep into your skull.

"Oh don't look so terrified," a familiar laugh bursts through. She's here, you can tell from that awful sound. You dare yourself to look up from the white coat in front of you and peek over his shoulder. His hands on your arms loosen their grip. "You're not in trouble, dear. He's not here to kill you. Not yet, at least."

Not yet.

"He is, however, here to take you with him. Now you'll be his darling little pet, no longer mine," she continues, baring her crooked teeth through a wide grin as she strolls through the room. "Though I doubt you ever were..."

You catch a glimpse of the man in front of you as he clenches his jaw, suddenly so quick to speak up. "What she means is that you will be working for me. Hurry now, I've wasted too much time here. Get dressed."

The demand comes with a brief flicker in those cerulean eyes. He chucks a folded piece of fabric onto the mattress and averts his gaze, wearing that same measured expression he often wore at every attempt of avoiding your naked form. He is a man after all, and you're no fool, no stranger to their stares even in clothes.

At unfolding the fabric on the bed you discover it's a dress. Pale blue linen, with short ruffled sleeves and loose white buttons running down the middle. It's a bit worn-out, evidently, but something to cover up with no less.

"Now, now, stop your shaking. Do try to be good for Mr. Snow," says Dr. Gaul with eerie delight. "Or he'll bite."

Her foreboding words leave you nauseous. Whatever she meant, you didn't like the sound of it. Mr. Snow himself seems no more pleased than you are. It is almost odd to see him in such a state, so bizzarely uncomposed and flustered, with that tension in his jaw and the shadow cast over his face.

"I...I don't understand," you manage to croak out a whisper, throat barren of any moisture from the cold and dry air.

"Patience. You will soon!" she chirps.

That sinister response only nettles your nerves. You slip nervously into the dress, feeling a little awkward doing so with an audience of two. Strangely enough it has grown easier to get undressed than to do the opposite.

"Go on," Dr. Gaul says with a sly leer, gesturing toward the door. "Leave the old coop for your shiny new one. How exciting for all of us...But don't walk too fast now, it'll make him nervous. He'll think you're fleeing!"

The last part conjures out of her core a paroxysm of wretched laughter. Your stomach coils uncomfortably, throat growing more and more parched with every word she speaks. Mr. Snow clears his own and storms out of the room, leaving you to drown alone in your confusion.

"Oh but before you leave, I must advise you this — don't be so foolish as to try and escape. I assure you little girl, Mr. Snow will catch you. That one has learnt from his mistakes."

#coriolanus snow #coriolanus snow x reader #x reader #ao3 #tbosas #theballadofsongbirdsandsnakes #coryo #coryo x reader #snowbaird #slowburn

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paraseleneg1rl · 1 month ago

Text

Pet

A Coriolanus Snow x Reader fanfiction.

Summary: In a moment of weakness, Coriolanus finally gives in to temptation and decides to save you from Dr. Gaul's laboratory.

Warnings: Coriolanus Snow being Coriolanus Snow, Obsession, Obsessive behavior, possessive behavior, misogyny, captivity.

Prologue

Chapter 1

PROLOGUE

Coriolanus Snow is a meticulous man. He has been for all his life. There is something rather pleasing, he muses, about careful planning and calculations and organisation.

After all, without all these particular measures, how much control could he have over anything? Too little, no doubt. It would slip right through his fingers.

Life would be unpredictable. And if there is anything that Coriolanus despises most in the world, it would be all things unpredictable.

He'd learnt this the hard way in his ugly past; from the Dark Days, to the 10th Annual Hunger Games.

Even Lucy Gray.

Now, Coriolanus is determined to no longer yield to drunken illusions and fleeting romances. No matter how fun and all-consuming they can be. They're merely illusions after all. All the unpredictable things in this world are dressed in wonderful bright colours. It's the perfect way to lure one into a sense of love and comfort.

To fall for such a trap again would be to fail himself once more. It would signify a lack of strength.

This reminder resurfaces with every glance in your direction. And it comes much harsher when he catches his gaze lingering a tad longer than it should.

But no. This isn't weakness. Weakness has nothing to do with this fixation. Its only natural. Biological. All men have penchants for beautiful women, especially ones like you, with your sweet fawn-eyes and your girlish innocence.

Why should he be exempt from having such inclinations? Surely he could indulge every once in a while. And denying himself of a slight, lovely girl like you is more often than not an onerous task. What would be the harm in admiring from afar?

The pen in his fingers halts halfway through his scribbling and he takes another look at you from the corner of the lab. Dr. Gaul has one gloved hand pressing on your neck for a pulse as you lay unclothed and motionless on the operating table.

His own heart begins to thud louder than usual. With a clenched jaw Coriolanus looks away and attempts to concentrate on the report in front of him.

It shouldn't matter how pleasing you are to the eye. How delightfully sweet you appear, especially now, as you rest unconscious. It is none of his business if you live or die. At the end of the day, you are Dr. Gaul's little lab rat. Not his pet to touch and admire.

“Alive," says Dr. Gaul, her bored voice echoing across the cold room. His grip on his pen loosens slightly. For a moment he pauses his scribbling to watch the strange woman lift both your eyelids open. She then shines a light in each. "Rather strong for such a docile little thing. Pupils have returned to normal. No sign of scale growth."

Coriolanus jots the information down in your report. Dr. Gaul's dissatisfaction is palpable even from a distance. He's adapted to it by now; her fickle moods often radiate throughout the entire Citadel, keeping every employee on their toes.

At the sight of Dr. Gaul approaching his table Coriolanus straightens up and sets your report aside. She snaps the rubber gloves off of her hands. Here comes the storm, he thinks bitterly.

"This project has been a complete waste of time," she scowls. "Perfecting the formula for this serum is proving to be much more of a challenge than I had thought it would be. Two of our subjects have been completely immune and four have suffered scarcely any significant effects besides minor changes in the iris and pupils. There was, of course, that runt from 12 who showed all the signs. But even those changes lasted no longer than a mere 5 days."

A part of him feels glad about the turn of events. Besides evoking a series of bad memories, this experiment has done little else.

Clemensia Dovecote's strange 'flu' often comes to mind; flashes of her high pitched shriek and the vibrant snakes slithering in the tank appear as vivid now as the very day it happened. He doubts the memory would ever fade.

Dr. Gaul had always been rather proud of that incident. With Coriolanus as her apprentice, they worked hand in hand alongside her fellow scientists at the Citadel to formulate a new serum; one that would result in similar effects, from scale growth to other grotesque reptilian features.

This time, however, the aim is to bring about life-long consequences. Where Clemensia only endured those unsightly side effects for a few weeks, the new serum is intended to permanently transform its user.

It's taken 3 whole months of unproductive testing for Dr. Gaul to finally throw in the towel and admit defeat. What a mess, mocked the voice in his mind. They were lucky all her experiments hadn't started another Mockingjay catastrophe.

If only he could skip to the future, a future free of Dr. Gaul and her loose screws...

No matter. All he has to do is stick to the plan.

There are only a few months to graduation; that's the time Coriolanus has left before he can claim the official title of Game-maker. Once the position is solidified, perhaps after a year or two, he will no longer have to be bound to this awful laboratory.

Coriolanus will finally be able to carve his way through politics, and move on to bigger and better things. Oh how perfect it would be; how nice to work someplace without the hideousness of cold bodies and blood and needles. Someplace that never reeks of rubber gloves or strange chemicals.

"Perhaps," Coriolanus begins, treading carefully. "It would be a good idea to allocate our resources towards other projects."

"Don't tell me what I already know, child," she snaps with a glare. Right, Coriolanus thought to himself. Of course you know it all, now that you've wasted 3 precious months of our lives.

It is the sound of your faint coughing in the background that distracts her from her dour mood. Coriolanus's eyes dart towards you, heart pumping at an uncomfortable speed. He finds it rather unsettling, the way his shoulders immediately feel lighter at the sight of you awake and stirring on the operation table.

"Another lab rat that needs putting down," mutters Dr. Gaul, eyeing you from afar with a bored look. "I have no more use for the thing. Make sure she's out of my sight by the end of the day."

Coriolanus's stomach twists into a knot. This is it. He will have to do to you what he has done to the others.

He glances over to the corner of the laboratory once more, where you shifted in place without as much as a squeak. It reminds him of the first thing that struck him when you first arrived at the Citadel.

How strangely quiet you were, despite your trembling. As opposed to the other test subjects, all of whom made sure to give him a hard time with their screaming and kicking and cursing prior to sedation, you seemed quite docile indeed.

And yet deep inside you were terribly afraid. He could tell; it wasn't hard to. In the early mornings he could see you shaking like a leaf at the mere sight of him stepping into the lab. Sometimes he would catch you blinking back tears from your glossy eyes.

Doing his job felt most challenging in those moments, when you would peer up at him through damp lashes and that half lidded gaze. Pliant but afraid as you awaited your slaughter.

The look of the lamb.

The skin that covered his palm would burn and tingle as it curved over your outstretched arm, preparing you for another round of injections. And you allowed him to, every time, without a single sound of protest.

A bunny trotting into the bloody jaws of a wolf.

And now at last he has to chew you down and spit you out.

"On second thought," Dr. Gaul pauses in her trail and turns to look at him with a smirk. "It would be quite a shame, wouldn't it, to let go of such a pretty face? Capitol men do love their District whores. I know one or two who would pay me good money for your little pet."

His heart beat begins to thump so loud it sounds queer to his own ears. Suddenly inhaling and exhaling feels rather arduous.

He thinks of those men in their crisp tailored suits putting a price on you. Coriolanus swallows the lump in his throat, fingers curling tighter and tighter around his pen.

From afar he can see glimpses of your bare chest and exposed legs. It is far from an unfamiliar sight, though no less pleasant; like every other one of their test subjects, he's seen you naked a few times.

And when you were, which was quite often, Coriolanus did his best not to let himself stare for a second too long. Especially when he had to sit so near to observe your progress and collect data. He allowed himself brief glimpses at best. Anything besides only forced all his blood down south, something he learned the hard way.

On occasions where his mind and body refused to cooperate Coriolanus would feel his cock twitching and aching in his pants. Begging for a release only you could bring.

It was quite strange; you had a little more meat on your bones than one would expect of a district girl. In all the right places too, places he sometimes longed to touch. You were a pleasure any man would wish to hold and admire and indulge in. Coriolanus wanted to learn for himself how soft your body truly is — if it's as heavenly to the hand as it is to the eye.

The sight of your puckered lips, your rounded breasts and the plush flesh of your thighs — shivering and pinned close at times when the dry air in the laboratory grew unbearably cold — was often so potent it left him lightheaded. But a quick trip to the bathroom usually straightened him out.

Capitol men do love their District whores. I know one or two who would pay me good money for your little pet.

They would, they really would, he's certain of it. The idea of their grimy paws pouncing on your innocence makes his stomach coil. Would you cry? Would you tremble and quiver in fear the way you did around him?

At the thought alone his breakfast threatens to make a reappearance.

The sound of the door clicking shut plucks him out of his trance. Dr. Gaul appears to be long gone now, no doubt off to the pantry for her milk and crackers.

A plan. Coriolanus needs one before the mad woman returns.

His fingers hover over your report, hesitating to flip the last page. He's never read the background information on any of the test subjects before, afraid it might stir up sentimental feelings that would only interfere with his work.

What did their past life matter anyway? Their fates were already sealed. What good would his curiosity do?

But in desperation to choreograph your escape, Coriolanus finds that his hands had already made quick work of the documents containing your information. He scans the pages hastily, reading top to bottom.

You come from a small family of bakers in District 9, he discovers. You had volunteered to be apart of these experiments in place of some pickpocket named Mary.

It's beginning to make sense now — why you yielded to every procedure, always so docile and pliant. Volunteering meant you had long accepted that there was no other choice, that this was to be your fate.

You must have known it would have been the other girl's unless you interfered. Which you did. You saved her from a harsh sentence, a cruel ending you did not wish her to endure.

That could only mean you had long embraced your own demise in place of her suffering. Even the possibility of death.

His heart expands with a painful stretch. Why had you offered to bear another person's sin? You were an angel of salvation. Who is this Mary to you, he wonders.

Tigris comes to mind. Coriolanus ponders over how brave she had been for him during the war. How her frail, bony frame shielded his whenever bombs rained down from the sky. How she never once put herself first before him & their Grandma'am.

A strange tight knot forms in his gut. All this time hidden behind your frailty was a selfless valour. A rare gem he was yet to find in anyone else besides his cousin. Most people are rather self-concerned.

Not that he is one to judge. He doesn't care much for kindness. No, not in the way he used to. Who could afford being kind anymore in such a cruel world?

He had risked everything to save Lucy Grey and what did she do? The little songbird betrayed him at the first opportunity.

Had he not retaliated against her tricks Coriolanus was sure he too would have died and rotted amongst those trees in 12. Silly, treacherous girl, thinking she could hurt him with her ugly snakes and menacing riddles.

Yes, Coriolanus mused bitterly, the good are cursed to be punished. This wicked world only hurts them and batters them and spits on their kindness.

Look where you ended up.

How evil does this make him, then? Now that he has, at last, found an angel among heathens, but then sentences her to imminent corruption? To be cruelly debased and degraded and dishonoured by the grimy hands of the lustful. Hands of the men that will strip this angel of all semblance of goodness.

To release you would be watching a sinless litte kitten get clawed and de gloved by starving dogs.

His chest rises and falls with every heavy breath. Perhaps now it is far too late to protect Tigris from the lengths she had gone to save their family.

But it isn't too late to save you.

Well i'm not made out of sugar.

No. With a shake of his head Coriolanus banishes the voice from his consciousness. He's now a great distance from the evils of District 12, from Lucy Gray. He is safe and this is different. There are no wild snakes slithering in the dark. Only mutts. And even those beasts are trapped here in the lab, all within his control.

Here in the Capitol, the power is in his hands. And yours? Well, as long as you're here under his surveillance, your hands are, and forever will be, shackled to him. Yes, Coriolanus will make sure of it.

He can save you.

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